The little red writing book - Brandon Royal 2007
Capitalize on sentence variety
Style
Principle #14: Vary the length and beginnings of your sentences.
The normal sentence pattern in English is subject-verb-object (S-V-O), as seen in the example “I play tennis.” Most sentences should follow this subject-verb-object sequence because it produces the most power. However, if all sentences follow this order, our writing becomes choppy and monotonous. Particularly noticeable are series of sentences all beginning the same way, especially with “I” or “we.” Here are ten ways to vary sentence beginnings.
WITH A SUBJECT
Customers can tell us why products sell if we take the time to listen to them.
Definition: The subject is what or whom the sentence is about.
WITH A PHRASE
For this reason, no product is to be built until we know a market exists for it.
Definition: A phrase is a group of words that does not contain a verb.
WITH A CLAUSE
Because human beings are complex, the sales process cannot be reduced to a simple formula.
Definition: A clause is a group of words that does contain a verb.
WITH AN ARTICLE
A good batting average is an arguably more important statistic in baseball than is the number of home runs achieved.
Definition: There are three articles in English — a, an, and the.
WITH A VERB
Try not to text during the speech.
Definition: A verb is a word that expresses an action or a state of being.
WITH AN ADVERB
Understandably, students like to hear entrepreneurs speak of rags-to-riches stories.
Definition: An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. When adverbs are used to begin sentences (usually followed by a comma), they can be referred to as “opening sentence” adverbs.
WITH ADJECTIVES
Intelligent and compassionate, Dorothy has the ingredients to be a leader.
Definition: An adjective is a word used to modify or describe a noun or pronoun.
WITH A GERUND
Traveling to a country is more meaningful when you first invest time reading about its geography and history.
Definition: A gerund is a noun formed with -ing. Informally it is said to be “a noun that looks like a verb.”
WITH AN INFINITIVE
To be a monk, a person must be able to relinquish selfishness in order to concentrate on a higher goal.
Definition: An infinitive is a noun that is formed by a verb preceded by to.
WITH CORRELATIVE CONJUNCTIONS
Not only poverty but also pollution threatens the development of the third world.
Definition: A conjunction is a word that joins or connects words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. A correlative conjunction joins parts of a sentence that are of equal weight. Four common correlative conjunctions include “either … or,” “neither … nor,” “not only … but (also),” and “both … and.”
EXERCISE
Selling is difficult. It requires practical experience and personal initiative.
To practice this principle, rearrange the above sentence to satisfy the different headings below. You may have to change the content of the sentence for the purpose of this exercise.
See suggested solutions
1. With a Subject
2. With a Phrase
3. With a Clause
4. With an Article
5. With a Verb
6. With an Adverb
7. With Adjectives
8. With a Gerund
9. With an Infinitive
10. With Correlative Conjunctions
